


The Act of Living

by rosewindow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1360324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewindow/pseuds/rosewindow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s your name?” he asked.<br/>“Buy me a drink and maybe I’ll tell you.”<br/>“We’re both on duty-”<br/>“Coffee. From the canteen."<br/>“Deputy John Stilinski,” he said, offering his hand over coffees.<br/>She shook it firmly. “Nursing Student Melissa Delgado.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Act of Living

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neenya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neenya/gifts).



> Inspired by Niña's tags on this post: http://neenya.tumblr.com/post/64723424749

Claudia was always endgame for John. He’d been writing their combined names in his notebook since third grade. But then, they went different ways after high school. He joined the Army for a while to help pay for college. She went to college across the country, went abroad for grad school, got a grant to travel the world. When John returned to Beacon Hills he was left at a loose end. They talked often, but never about the future. Never about when she was coming back, or what they might do then. John told her about his job as a deputy, and she was appropriately happy for him, but he got the sense that a job in their hometown and an apartment just a five minute drive from his mother weren’t things she was looking forward to. Her stories were all about the stars over the Alps, and skinny dipping off the islands of the Philippines, and discovering the corner of a Minoan house. How could his tales of mildly unruly drunks and teenagers smoking pot behind the high school compare? The first truly exciting thing that happened to him, he couldn’t even tell her about.

The case itself started out as a pretty clear cut case of random mountain lion. Two teenagers - a couple who had apparently been banned from seeing each other - were out in the woods. She had been mauled rather badly, and had been dead by the time officers arrived. He was badly wounded as well - claw marks across his chest and a bite wound in his side - but he was in stable condition now, and John needed to question him.

"And where do you think you're going?"

The usual Emergency Ward nurse was an older lady who was friends with his Ma, and had given him all his shots growing up. The nurse with crossed arms and a firm scowl, bearing down on him was definitely not her.

“I need to interview this victim-”

“Let me tell you about things I don’t have time for: interfering, hot-shot young deputies who think they can waltz into my ward and hassle the patients under my care. Your cute face doesn’t give you a free pass here.”

He opened his mouth in outrage and she held up a finger. “I don’t want to hear it. You can wait, _in the waiting room_ , until I come and tell you he’s ready to talk.”

So John waited. And waited. After exactly forty-three minutes, the nurse poked her head into the waiting room, looked irritated that he was still there, and waved him back. She was still hanging around after he finished the interview.

“What’s your name?” he asked, intending simply to record it in his notes.

“Buy me a drink and maybe I’ll tell you.”

“We’re both on duty-”

“Coffee. From the canteen. Come on; I can take a quick break.”

He was behind schedule - the wait had thrown off his day - but he followed her down to the little cafe.

“Deputy John Stilinski,” he said, offering his hand over coffees.

She shook it firmly. “Nursing Student Melissa Delgado.”

\---

The animal attacks continued and they got coffee several more times. He thought nothing of it when Melissa invited herself over for beers after a particularly difficult shift. He maybe should have.

He thought briefly about Claudia as Melissa kissed him fiercely, but they hadn’t established exclusivity or even acknowledged an actual relationship. So, an hour later when she was pressing him back into the couch, all he was thinking was, ‘Do I even have condoms?’

After a wonderfully sleepless night, Melissa was lounging in his bed while he shrugged on a fresh uniform.

“What time do you have to leave?” she asked, stretching so the sheet slipped down her stomach.

“Like five minutes ago,” he groaned.

She grinned and fell back into the pillows. “Too bad. I think I’ll just lie here a while longer.”

Needless to say, he was late for work.

\---

They were both so busy that they rarely had time to get together, let alone go on dates, and Melissa was very reluctant to let him see her place. So they made due with stolen moments whenever they could. He got more familiar with the hospital’s supply closets and lockable rooms than he’d ever thought possible.

Melissa shoved him into a closet and crowded in after him.

“Do you have to wear that stupid uniform?” she growled.

“Well, I am at work,” he chuckled, sliding a hand under her scrubs and into her underwear.

She shuddered and arched into him.

“God, John. Do you have time to fuck me?”

He glanced at his watch. “No,” he said regretfully, “but I have time for this.”

He dropped to his knees, pulling her pants down with him.

John loved doing this; loved both the act of it, and the way it made Melissa react. She shuddered above him; biting down on her wrist to keep quiet. His hands were curved around the top of her thighs, keeping her upright.

She knocked over a mop as she came, and the clatter as it fell made the two of them jump. John chuckled as he stood up, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his uniform.

“We’d better go before someone comes to investigate that.”

Melissa straightened herself up before shoving him out into the hallway with a final kiss.

\---

And then Claudia came back.

She slipped back into his life like she’d never been gone. She was different, obviously, but so was he, and for the most part the changes were for the better. They’d needed a bit of distance, he realized, to get away from the ‘childhood sweethearts’ feel of their relationship. They were grown-up now; he had nothing but positive reviews at the Sheriff’s Department, and Claudia had a fellowship at the local university.

About a week after Claudia got back, she got really sick.

“It’s the pasteurized milk,” she laughed weakly, smiling up at him from where she was camped out on his bathroom floor.

When she wasn’t better twenty-four hours later, he nervously called Melissa.

He’d worried about the two of them meeting, but he shouldn’t have; they got along like a house on fire. When Melissa wasn’t doing her residencies at the local hospitals, she was on campus with Claudia, and they had lunch together more often than not. It was after one of these lunches that John got a bit of a surprise.

“-and Melissa was saying her fiancé’s coming home. And he’s got a date at the courthouse for them. Right before midterms, of course. Poor thing is so stressed. I think I’ll make her some cookies or something-”

Claudia kept talking, but John was stuck on that one word. How long had she been engaged? Why had she never mentioned him? And why had she started anything with _him_? They hadn’t been all that serious emotionally, but still.

He meant to talk to her about it, he really did, but he never found the right moment. Rafael came back from Quantico, and the four of them eventually settled into a friendly routine of dinner dates and watching games on the McCall’s big screen. John took off work so he and Claudia could go to their wedding, and he helped grill burgers at the reception.

Claudia was the one who first brought up marriage as something serious. John didn’t exactly panic - he’d wanted Claudia forever, after all - but he wasn’t quite prepared for it. The first thing he did was call Melissa. She was in the middle of her last week of finals, so they met up at a coffeeshop near the nursing school library.  
“You want to marry her though.”

“Yes, but-”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes.”  
“Do you love me?”

John hesitated. “...Yes.”

“Come on then,” she said, standing up suddenly. “My study room locks.”

\---

“This is the last time,” Melissa said firmly, tangling her fingers with his. “Get us out of our systems, and then you can go and marry the girl of your dreams.”

The last few times he and Claudia had had sex, he’d found himself thinking about Melissa. He knew that that was unfair to both of them, but he hadn’t quite figured out how to separate things. He focussed only on Melissa now; on her smile and soft laughter as she pulled off her sweatshirt, on her warm skin under his hands, on her quiet gasps as he worked her open with fingers and tongue.

She tugged his clothes off impatiently, and spread him out on the floor. Then, with a roll of her hips, he was inside her. This was the last time, and that knowledge heightened every moment. He pulled her tight against him and tangled his hands in her curls as he pressed their lips together. He moved one hand down to stroke her face, and then lower to cradle her breast.

“John,” she whimpered.

He found himself unable to respond and instead clutched her harder, pouring all of his feelings into a kiss as they tumbled over the edge together.

\---

John was cleaning up lazily when Melissa tugged him back down to the floor with her.

“You work better with her,” she said, running a finger along his sternum. “You seem more settled, happier now that she’s back. We’ve had fun, but-”

“We’ve had more than fun; don’t sell yourself short. But I appreciate what you’re doing. Thank you.”

She kissed him lightly. “Of course. Friends?”

“Friends.”

He bought a ring on the way home, and he and Claudia were married in a small ceremony three weeks later.

\---

John couldn’t find Melissa when he came to the hospital a week or two after the wedding. Nurse Smythe was back in the Emergency Ward, and she directed him up to Obstetrics. Melissa was there, slumped over in the Nursery.

“Hey,” he said softly. “How’ve you been?”

“I delivered a baby this morning,” she said dully.

“That’s - pretty awesome?”

Melissa shrugged. John knelt down and put a hand on her knee. She didn’t even look up at him.

“I’m pregnant.”

He froze, and did some frantic math.

“Is it-? I mean, am I-?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. You or Rafael could be the father.”

John inhaled. “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

“But you and Claudia-”

“Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

She looked at him for the first time. Her eyes were wide, but dry. He nodded, and her lips curled up with a hint of a smile.

A few months later, Claudia got pregnant too, and Rafael muttered about something in the water.

\---

John was away on a call when Melissa gave birth, but Claudia called him with the news. “Rafael just came out of the delivery room. Melissa and the baby are perfect. Apparently he looks just like Rafael’s dad, so they’ve named him Scott after him.”

John breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s great. I’ll come visit them when I get a moment.”

“Don’t hover,” Claudia teased. “I’m about to head home anyway. Melissa’s exhausted, and I think all the excitement is making our little one jealous. We can go tomorrow.”

\---

Scott was indeed perfect. Claudia’s doctor was starting to recommend bed-rest for all non-essential tasks, but she had declared visits with Scott and Melissa to be essential, and John wasn’t going to argue. He liked spending time there too. ‘Practice,’ Melissa laughed, handing Scott over and gently correcting his hold on the baby. It also gave Melissa time for some well deserved rest. Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital had been nice enough to defer her job offer to give her a bit of maternity leave, but she was currently taking every opportunity to sleep.

John and Claudia were on babysitting duty for the afternoon. Well, at the moment Claudia was asleep too. She was propped up on the couch with Scott nestled - also napping - in the crook of one arm and the other curved over her stomach. It was probably the most beautiful thing John had ever seen.

Scott shifted in his sleep, and the movement woke Claudia. She sighed. “Guess I’m going to have to get used to being woken up by babies. Especially if this one stays so high energy.”

Their as yet unnamed son was a frequent kicker.

John set down the report he was working on, and leaned over to kiss her, Scott, and her belly. “I can’t wait for them to meet.”

“They’ll be best friends,” she murmurred.

“Or they’ll hate each other,” John pointed out wryly.

Claudia laughed lightly. “No. No, they’ll be friends. Practically brothers.”

She paused.

"It’s a good thing he doesn't look like you, huh?" she asked softly, cradling the sleeping Scott a little closer.

John froze.

Claudia liked to talk, she was always chatting about something, but she also knew how to wield silence like a weapon. She let him stew for a while, his lack of response as good as an admission.

“How many times?”

“Just-” he swallowed. “Just once while we were together. The night before I proposed.”

She nodded and silence fell between them.

“You don’t… hate me, do you?” John asked eventually.

“Not you. Maybe what you’ve done - a little - but not you.” She got a steely glint in her eye. “However, it does mean that I get to name this little guy, and we’re naming him after my Pappu.”

John opened his mouth, but his protests died on his tongue. “Fair enough,” he settled on, “But you know I can’t pronounce it.”

“I know,” she smirked, laying Scott in his crib and switching on the baby monitor. “You’ll learn.”


End file.
